CHERUB: Underground
by bobdat
Summary: On his most dangerous mission to date, George is sent to infiltrate a child smuggling ring. Hundreds of miles from civilisation and with only his fellow CHERUB agent Michael to help him, he has to endure harsh conditions and guards carrying AK-47s as they try to escape the organisation with enough information to crack it wide open. Book V in the CHERUB: Knight series.
1. 1: Unexpected

**1: Unexpected**

 _January 2013_

It was one of the coldest days of the winter and there was a harsh east wind blowing which had Rex shivering even through his thick jacket. He was happy to pull the collar up over his mouth and follow Ralph, a stocky black boy he'd done basic training with. The two lads were good friends, but they'd been up early to catch a train to Nottingham and the few hours they'd spent in each other's company were already beginning to wear.

Ralph had his phone out in front of him, checking the route as he walked. They'd skirted around the railway line and followed a main road into a suburban bit of Nottingham, where, since it was a working Tuesday, there didn't seem to be anyone around.

"Next left," Ralph said, looking up from the screen to see if he could see the side street they wanted. "Should be somewhere up there on the right."

It seemed to Rex like they'd been walking for ages and all the houses looked the same, so he just shrugged.

"If you say so, dude."

Just before the turning they passed a church, set back from the road with a graveyard surrounding it. Rex looked up at it as they passed, Ralph's eyes back on the phone.

"Nice church," he said, jogging a little to catch up.

Ralph cracked a smile and looked round at him. "I really couldn't care less about the local church architecture."

Rex shrugged. "Just making conversation."

They took the left, onto Sussex Road, and Ralph pushed his phone back into his pocket. With everyone at work, there weren't many parked cars, except for a white van parked on the kerb with 'Mayhew & Sons Carpentry and Joiners Ltd.' stencilled on the side. As they passed behind it, both of them pulled out tiny, button-sized earpieces and put them into their ears.

"Ralph, Rex, do you read?" the voice of mission controller Chloe Blake said in their ears. Both boys just nodded as they passed the van, which looked empty from the outside but, in reality, had a couple of high-tech cameras mounted to the outside and Chloe herself sitting inside, monitoring their progress.

"House is all clear," she added as they crossed the road, walking purposefully up the drive of number twelve. "He left for work two hours ago and I've not detected any activity."

Ralph knocked twice on the door, while Rex moved close and pushed his lock gun into the door. It took a couple of jiggles to get it right, but the lock turned and they both stepped inside.

The two thirteen-year-olds had been asked to help out with another ongoing mission by breaking into a suspect's house and hunting for evidence of his role in drug dealing. It came with the usual ransacking element, but since certain pieces of drug paraphernalia are fragile or look like everyday objects, they had to comb the place thoroughly first before they could get to the destruction.

Rex followed Ralph's example and pulled on a pair of gloves before doing anything else. The house was set up like a typical family semi, with piles of shoes lying by the door and family photos stuck on the wall by the stairs. Ralph took the first right, into the living room, while Rex headed for the kitchen. He'd been trained in what to look for and began in the fridge-freezer, pushing aside packets of sweetcorn and Birds Eye fish cakes. Not finding anything meaningful, he started on the kitchen cabinets, but a five-minute search left him with the impression it was a regular family's kitchen.

"Any luck?" he said, sticking his head around the door to see how Ralph was doing.

The other boy was feeling around behind the sofa, but shook his head. "Did you check for loose wall panels and stuff?" he asked, withdrawing his hand and wiping a sticky patch of his glove on the sofa cushion.

"Tried everything I could, no joy," Rex replied.

"You try the downstairs loo, I'll go upstairs," Ralph said, almost leaving the room before doubling back and shoving his hand up the chimney. There was nothing there, so Rex let him get past before pushing open the door to the toilet. It was a tiny room with a miniscule sink, and took him all for twenty seconds to search before concluding there was nothing there.

His plan was to go upstairs and help Ralph, but he saw feet coming back down the stairs and waited to see what was going on.

Ralph's expression was a mixture of anxiety and glee as he looked at Rex.

"You have got to see this," he grinned, turning and going back the way he came, taking care to keep quiet on the carpeted stairs. Rex followed, bewildered, and when they reached the top Ralph pushed open the door to the master bedroom with a smirk.

Rex put his head inside and gasped, almost smacking his head on Ralph's as he backed up.

"His wife's still here?" Rex whispered, sneaking another look at the half-naked woman lying face down on the bed. "What the hell is Chloe playing at?"

Ralph shook his head. "This dude's got kids our age. His wife would be at least in her thirties, and that bird isn't a day over twenty-five."

Rex cracked a huge grin. "No way! Dirty old bastard." He put his head in for another look, feeling a mixture of lust and repulsion towards the woman as he got an eyeful of her skimpy knickers.

In the meantime, Ralph took a few steps through into the second bedroom and pressed on the earpiece.

"Chloe, do you read?"

"Loud and clear, Ralph."

"We've got an unidentified woman sleeping in the front bedroom. Thoughts?"

Chloe swore. "You're serious?"

"One hundred percent. Do we pull out?"

"His wife's away in Florida, who on earth has he got sleeping in his bed?"

Ralph chuckled. "Cat's away, mice will play," he said. "I'd guess she's in her twenties, dressed like he found her on a street corner."

"Negative. You don't let prostitutes sleep in your house while you go to work," Chloe said. "Alright, can you get out?"

"We've poked around downstairs, but if we nick the telly or something it'll probably cover us," Ralph told her. "He'll assume it was burglars looking for cash if anything's been moved."

"Can you carry on without waking her?"

"I doubt it. Drop something breakable and it's game over."

There was a pause while Chloe thought it over. "Do you boys think you can knock her out somehow?"

"I suppose. It won't be elegant, though, just a smack on the head," Ralph said.

"Do it. We've waited four months for this chance, and I'm not waiting for another."

"Received and understood," Ralph finished, letting go of the earpiece and going back out onto the landing, almost colliding with Rex coming the other way.

"What's the plan?" Rex asked.

Ralph made a punching gesture and pointed to the room. "Knock her out."

Rex looked uncomfortable. "But she's topless," he hissed.

Rolling his eyes, Ralph pushed past and crept into the bedroom, moving quickly. The duvet had been thrown off the bed and he had to squeeze past it to get close enough, keeping his eyes off the woman's bare skin. As he got close, there was a strong smell of stale alcohol and the woman had a puddle of drool next to her mouth.

He could see Rex looking on from the doorway as he made sure his feet were making a wide base and launched an explosive punch, connecting cleanly with the side of her head. The bed absorbed most of the blow, but Ralph had felt it even though his gloves and was sure he'd done enough. To make sure, he grabbed her shoulder and shook her, but she didn't respond except to roll her head into the patch of drool.

"Get to work," Ralph said, pointing to Rex. "I've no idea how long we'll have."

Rex disappeared to go and search the other rooms, while Ralph gritted his teeth and rolled the woman into the recovery position, unable to tell whether the blow to the head would cause her to vomit or anything. He fervently wished she'd decided to fall asleep with more clothes on as he positioned her, feeling weird touching her, but once she was lying safely he picked up the duvet and threw it on top of her.

"She's unconscious," he relayed to Chloe.

"Good work. You're under time pressure so be as thorough as you can and leave," Chloe replied.

There was tons of clutter in all the bedrooms, so it took the Cherubs quite a while to be sure they'd searched everywhere. There was no sign of anything incriminating, which was frustrating, but every time a car drove past on the street outside it reminded them that they didn't have time for an in-depth look.

Meeting on the upstairs landing again, both boys were empty-handed.

"Time to go?" Ralph asked.

Rex nodded, but as Ralph started down the stairs, he stopped dead, examining the carpet.

"Look at this," he said, crouching down and pointing to two square indents in the pile. "Looks like something is normally resting here."

Ralph was confused. "What would you rest at the top of the stairs?" he asked out loud. "It's only got two legs so it can't be a chair or a table."

"Must be heavy to leave indents, too," Rex said.

Ralph started tapping on the walls and floor, looking for anything hidden, but Rex grabbed his shoulder with a smile, pointing up at the ceiling. There was a hatch leading to the loft space.

"Fiver says these are from the ladder," Rex said. "I saw a hook in the bathroom for opening the hatch."

The ladder was folded up inside the attic and unfolded as you pulled it down, where the legs slotted into the indents on the carpet.

"Good spot," Ralph said, testing the ladder for strength before climbing it with Rex waiting at the bottom.

He fumbled around at the top for a light switch, eventually finding it, and then laughed out loud when he could see.

"What is it?" Rex asked, peering up into the square of light.

"Looks like we came on the right day," Ralph said. "Here, catch."

Reaching around, he dropped a vacuum sealed pack of marijuana into Rex's arms.

"Jackpot," Rex grinned, turning it over in his hands. "A mistress and an attic full of drugs. This guy's life is going to be so shit when we're done with him."

With their findings reported to Chloe and most of the house now trashed (they'd both avoided the master bedroom since the woman was still unconscious in there), they finally made their exit, Rex opening the door while Ralph struggled out with the wall-mounted TV in his arms.

"Don't drop it," Rex reminded him, grinning.

"Don't lock the door, either," Ralph said, hoisting the TV up so he could get a better grip. "We want it to look like a break-in."

Rex pulled the door shut and left it unlocked, grabbing the other end of the TV as he helped Ralph carry it over to the van. Once they were close, the rear doors popped open and they passed it to a flustered-looking Chloe.

"Sorry, I did not expect anyone else to be in there," Chloe said apologetically. "We've been observing the house since yesterday, but it's not impossible for her to have just not gone outside all day yesterday."

"Don't sweat it," Ralph said, manhandling the TV so it was secure against the side of the van. "She was breathing easily when we left her, so hopefully she'll just wake up with nothing more than a serious headache."

"Good job, boys," Chloe said. "See you back on campus sometime."

She pulled the doors closed from the inside and Rex and Ralph walked back the way they'd come, zipping up coats against the cold.

Rex checked his watch. "If we get a move on we'll make it in plenty of time to get to George's party."

"He said the go-karting was at six, right?" Ralph asked, pushing his hands into his jacket pockets to keep warm.

"Half six," Rex corrected him. "I also want to eat dinner before then. Those railway station sandwiches were titchy."

"Should've gone for the pasty like me," Ralph told him. "That thing was huge, even if I'm pretty sure the meat was horse or dog or something."


	2. 2: Cook

**2: Cook**

"Fifteen minutes left," the instructor called from the front of the room, his eyes on a mechanical timer. "Last chance to get your dishes in the oven."  
Despite the tone of his voice, which was obviously supposed to generate tension, his audience was fifteen eleven- to fourteen-year-olds, all of whom had endured much more gruelling time challenges during training. A two-hour cooking session was nothing by comparison – some of them were already finished and were just chatting to one another whilst they waited for time to expire.  
George was not one of the lucky ones. He glanced through the glass door of the oven to see how brown his casserole was looking, but the door was grimy and he couldn't really tell. The prescribed time was twenty-five minutes and it had only been in for twenty, so he guessed he could safely leave it a bit longer.  
"If you're not doing anything, give me a hand with these vegetables," Jemima barked at him, her patience wearing thin as she wrestled with a giant tub of mushrooms. "If I have to chop another one of these little white bitches, someone's gonna get their throat cut."  
Normally the threat would have been empty, but she was wielding a large knife and George through it safest to comply. At the start of the lesson they'd all been split into pairs, and whilst George had spent the previous day hoping he'd be able to work with Rex and just muck about, his best friend had been called away at the last second for a mission and left him with Jemima, an Asian girl who he was friends with, but he hated how competitive she got. She'd gone red from the exertion and slammed the knife on the counter as she swapped placed with George.  
After a spate of agents returning from missions overweight and found to have been eating wall-to-wall McDonalds, the authorities on campus had decided that cooking lessons would be made mandatory. Items they'd be learning to cook were all healthy options and were designed to keep them in shape over lengthy missions away from campus. George liked a Big Mac as much as the next guy, but he realised the value of being able to make something tastier than fish fingers and chips and was initially enthusiastic, but too many complaints from some of the other agents meant that they'd devised an against-the-clock, high-octane format where each dish had to be prepared, cooked and served within sixty minutes.  
Slicing his way through the mound of mushrooms, George struggled to recall the next step of the recipe. Jemima was warming up the frying pan again, her eyes flicking to the clock every few seconds.  
Jemima was a surprisingly good cook and had done the majority of the work herself. When they'd had the full sixty minutes to go, George had been relaxed and took the opportunity to wander off, gravitating towards a workstation where two girls were chopping vegetables. Mainly, his goal was to chat up Courtney, a slim blonde girl, slightly older than him, who was in his history class. She was with her friend Paula, who George didn't know, but he instinctively disliked her because she kept interrupting and talking over him. After ten minutes of trying and failing to have a conversation with Courtney, he'd returned to his own workstation, getting an earful from Jemima.  
To compound matters, the pair of lads working behind Courtney and Paula had also finished early, and one of them, a stocky guy called Nick, was sitting on the counter, making Courtney laugh at his jokes. George couldn't decide whether Nick was actually interested in Courtney or whether he was just doing it to piss George off – the two of them were evenly matched partners in the dojo and, after a few bad-tempered sparring matches, they'd developed a deep dislike for each other.  
"For God's sake, George," Jemima moaned, pulling open the oven door and wafting away smoke. Her voice jolted him out of his thoughts and he resumed slicing, looking over at her.  
"What's the problem?" he asked, grabbing handfuls of chopped mushrooms and throwing them into a pile.  
"The casserole," Jemima said, grabbing the oven dish and pulling it out. "It's turning black on top. Why didn't you get it out sooner?" Her voice was stressed and whiny.  
"I thought it needed twenty five minutes?" George asked, trying desperately to remember.  
"It did, but we put it in on a higher heat, remember? Did you turn it down?" Jemima asked, but her question was answered when she looked down at the temperature setting. "Did you listen to anything I said? You've ruined it."  
The casserole didn't look too bad and George thought she was overreacting, but she looked close to tears.  
"Alright, I'm sorry," he said, finishing the last mushroom. "We should focus on finishing this last dish, though."  
Jemima's voice was loud enough for people to start looking over at them, and George was further irritated when Nick said something which sounded like it was aimed at them. Several others laughed and George threw the mushrooms into a bowl with more force than he meant to.  
Recovering her composure, Jemima snatched the bowl from George and added the rest of the ingredients, sliding it carefully into the oven for the final ten minutes of the challenge. It wasn't really long enough, but technically they only had to heat this one, so Jemima just turned the heat up a little more.  
Examining the damage to the casserole, George poked at the burnt bits with a knife and chipped them off, but the worst wouldn't come off so easily. He glanced around at the other things they'd prepared, which mostly looked average at best, and realised with a sinking feeling that, once again, he wouldn't be getting top marks on an assignment.  
Jemima seemed to be thinking the same thing as she grabbed an oven dish and began slapping the contents onto a white china plate, looking at him sourly.  
Nick cracked another joke and Courtney giggled, irritating George more. He took a deliberate look over in their direction, trying to gauge what state Nick's food was in, but it all looked basically okay and when he caught George looking, he grinned unpleasantly.  
"Trying to see what real skill looks like?" he taunted, getting a couple of guffaws from his mates.  
With Courtney looking on, George felt pressure to think of a good comeback, but he could only come up with, "It's not like I care about this anyway," which just sounded like he was being bitter.  
Nick shrugged. "Such a baby," he said, loud enough for George to hear.  
Feeling humiliated, George wanted to do something to get Nick back, but he'd backed himself into a corner and could feel Courtney's respect for him shrinking by the second.  
"I wasn't the one crying like a baby after I kicked your butt in the dojo," George replied, giving him the finger.  
"As if," Nick scoffed, stepping closer. "I'd destroy you any time, Knight."  
He kept coming closer, egged on by his mates, so George dropped into a combat pose and feinted a punch, trying to push him back. Nick retaliated immediately, launching a real kick which George had to dodge, smacking his hip painfully on the corner of a counter. People were shouting and shoving each other, trying to get a good view, but before George could try and attack again, Jemima wrapped her arms around his chest and wrenched him away, Nick getting the same treatment from the cooking instructor who had waded in.  
"Five laps, both of you," the instructor said, in firm tones. "Do not make it more."  
George sorely wanted to give Nick a good kicking, and threw a dirty look at Jemima, but she just tutted and pushed past him, making him feel even more pathetic.

As time expired, Jemima pulled their last dish out of the oven and served it directly onto a plate, where each one was marked out of ten and added up to an overall score out of one hundred. George wasn't expecting greatness and their total of forty-three points was what he'd anticipated. Jemima looked angry and didn't speak to him as she grabbed her stuff and left the room, but when he jogged after her and caught up on the path outside the education block, she'd softened.  
"Why do boys always have to be like that?" she complained, letting George share her umbrella to shelter from the rain.  
"Sorry," George said, pleased with how sincere his voice sounded. "I got carried away."  
Jemima nodded. "You owe me."  
"Definitely. Anything you want."  
She grinned at him. "At dinner tonight, you've gotta tell Rex he's a knob and not explain why."  
George gave her a mystified look. "I agree, but why do you want that out of everything you could ask for?"  
"I love messing with him. He'll be desperate to know all evening."  
They arrived at the door to the main building and Jemima paused, shaking the water off her umbrella as George darted inside into the dry.  
"If it weren't your birthday, I'd probably add a beat-down in the dojo to that, but since I'm so lovely, I won't," Jemima said, jabbing him in the back with the point of the umbrella as she folded it up.  
"Sounds fair to me," George said, his good mood returning as he realised he still had his birthday festivities to come.  
The pair of Cherubs jumped into the lift as it came down, unloading a white-shirt who looked harassed and peered out at the rain unhappily.  
"Borrow mine," Jemima said helpfully, handing her umbrella over.  
George had to lunge at the door controls to stop the lift leaving without her, but once Jemima was in he hit the door close button and they started ascending to the seventh floor.  
"Any news on Letty's mission?" George asked, rubbing his hair to see how damp it was.  
"Nothing new," Jemima replied. "I replied to her email yesterday, but she's really involved in this after-school dance club she's joined and practically never sends anything on a weekday."  
George knew Jemima didn't have a lot of close friends on campus apart from Letty, so when the two of them were separated, Jemima spent a lot of time hanging out in her room or the campus library.  
"Her loss," George said as the doors slid open again. "She's going to miss one of the most radical parties of the year."  
Jemima laughed. "Does anyone still use the word 'radical' anymore?"  
George shrugged and fished his room key out of his combat trousers. "Whatever."  
"See you at dinner?" Jemima asked, unlocking her room and waiting for an answer.  
"Will do," George responded, realising he'd forgotten to lock his own door when he'd left that morning and the key wasn't doing any good.

As he strolled into the room, he half-expected someone to have realised his door was open and trashed the place, but it was untouched. He unlaced and kicked his boots under the bed, then whipped off his damp jacket and tossed it onto the bed. The navy CHERUB-issue t-shirt underneath was dry and the heating was on in the main building, so he didn't bother grabbing a jumper as he slid into his computer chair and lifted the lid of his laptop, meaning to write up a quick message to Letty while he remembered, having put it off for three weeks already, but a flash of yellow caught his eye as he moved the laptop. A wide smile crept onto his face as he examined the card that had been placed beside the computer, issued only to agents with an appointment in the Mission Preparation building on campus. A pink post-it note was attached to the back, on which someone had written '9am, tomorrow'. He punched the air in celebration: it had been almost six months since his last mission and he'd been wondering if he was ever going to get another one. All thoughts of writing the email driven from his mind, his first instinct was to find Rex and gloat, but with Rex away on a mission and unavailable, he instead focused on the practical issue of whether he had any clean uniform to wear. 


	3. 3: Laps

**3: Laps**

With a couple of hours to kill before dinner, George decided to get his laps out of the way, despite the rain. If he had a meeting about a potential mission, he'd rather not have to explain that he had unfinished business with the athletics track.

Judging that he was going to get drenched either way, he decided to just wear his athletic gear there, then come back to his room for a shower afterwards, instead of using the showers in the changing rooms. He laced up trainers and pulled on a hoodie, looking unhappily out at the gusting wind. It was one of the coldest days of the year and running would be very unpleasant, but five laps wouldn't take him more than ten minutes even if he took it slowly.

Being that the rain seemed to only be getting harder, the track was understandably deserted. George nipped into the office to check that the sign-off sheet was there, guessing that he could probably just sign his name off and nobody would be any wiser. However, he'd seen hours of toilet scrubbing handed out for skipping even one lap, so he decided to just go for it and be back under a hot shower in twenty minutes. Turning on his heel, he almost clattered someone coming the other way.

"Oh, sorry," he said instinctively, stepping backwards. It took him a couple of seconds to work out that he was speaking to Kimberley, Rex's little sister who was a grey shirt, the same as her brother. She was small for her age and looked more like a red shirt, especially in a tracksuit which was slightly too big for her.

"Hi George," she said, squeezing past to put her name on the sheet before using a hair tie on her wrist to pull her dark hair back into a ponytail. "I take it you're here for the same reason I am?"

"Why else would I be here on a freezing cold day like today?" George asked, looking miserably out at the squalls of rain covering the track.

"What was the crime?" Kimberley had her own crowd of friends and was some kind of brainbox prodigy, so George didn't see much of her even though she was only a year or so younger than him. They got on well, though, much to the irritation of Rex who normally wanted to be around his younger sister as little as possible.

Cracking a smile, George replied. "Exchanged blows with Nick in cooking class. Probably lucky only to get five laps."

"Nick Fosse?" Kimberley asked. "Always has his hair spiked up in that really stupid-looking way?"

George nodded. "I bloody hate him. Such a smug git."

"I teach him Physics," she said, zipping her tracksuit up a little more in preparation for braving the elements. "Next time he acts up in class, I'll slap an extra punishment on him just for you."

Laughing, George followed her out into the weather. "Watching him run a thousand laps would go a long way to making me feel better."

They jogged around the track together, since George preferred the company to running by himself, even though Kimberley was slower than him.

"So what did you do to get laps?" he asked, cutting to the outside of the track to avoid a puddle.

She rolled her eyes. "You know my friend Naomi?" When George shook his head, she looked exasperated. "I'm pretty sure you were her partner on a first aid course. Honestly, I bet you could name every footballer in the top division, but someone you've actually spoken to is a mystery."

"When Naomi makes the QPR first team, I'll learn her name, promise," George grinned.

Kimberley rolled her eyes. "Anyway, she flipped after a paintball match and decked some red shirt who'd been giving her lip, and the instructors handed out ten laps a day to everyone on her team," she said. "You know how they are with punishments; even if you were hiding in a bush a mile away, you're still somehow responsible."

Nodding fervently, George sympathised. "I've probably been punished more for other people's misbehaviour."

"I seriously doubt that," Kimberley said, raising an eyebrow. "That's not what the staff say. 'It all starts with two hours in the recycling centre, but before you know it, you're George Knight.'"

"Did they really say that?" George asked, partly ashamed but partly proud.

"Words to that effect. I think some of the red shirts think you're actually just a made-up person who gets punished all the time."

George had thought he was about average in terms of how often he got in trouble, but he'd already served two mission suspensions and had only got his navy shirt after bailing Letty out of a failed mission the previous summer. "I really ought to behave myself more," he said, shivering as a gust of wind cut through his hoodie. "Means I'd avoid having to run laps on days like this."

"Don't worry about it. It's actually kind of fun hearing about it," Kimberley said as they rounded the final corner of lap five. "Some of the girls I know think you're a bit of a bad boy."

This was something George liked the sound of as he pulled up, watching Kimberley carry on. He considered waiting for her to finish so they could walk back to the main building together, but he was soaked to the skin and didn't fancy spending fifteen minutes shivering, so he waved at her from across the track and set off at a brisk jog back towards the main building.

His mind was still on the question of what Courtney thought about him when, showered and dressed in dry clothes, he made his way down to dinner. He was pleasantly surprised to see Rex and Ralph already there, tucking into giant helpings of curry.

"Alright, boys?" he asked once he'd filled his tray, sliding into the chair opposite. "Enjoyed your little jaunt?"

Ralph's mouth was full of rice, but Rex grinned wickedly.

"While you were sat in lessons like a goody two-shoes, me and Ralph were getting an eyeful of a smoking hot babe, almost totally naked," he said, pointing his fork at George.

George's mouth dropped open. "No way, seriously?" he asked, a lump of chicken halfway between the plate and his face. He looked over at Ralph for confirmation, expecting it to be a wind-up, but Ralph just nodded.

"To be fair, she wasn't conscious and I'd only rate her a seven at best," Ralph confirmed.

"A seven? We're talking a solid nine," Rex replied, shaking his head at Ralph. "Probably the first pair of boobs you've seen."

"Oh, and you've seen so many," Ralph replied contemptuously. "With all those zero girls you've snogged."

"Who's been snogging girls?" Beatrice asked as she sat down next to George, slopping some of her orange juice. "Can't be Rex, I've heard he doesn't know what girls are."

"Har har," Rex said, going back to his curry as everyone sniggered. "I at least have the balls to hit on girls, unlike you two."

"Hey, don't knock George. I heard he was caught in bed with a girl on his last mission, and he was hitting on Courtney Emerson today," Beatrice said, sounding smug as Ralph and Rex both groaned.

"Firstly, I wasn't caught doing anything, we only kissed," George began, but Rex interrupted.

"Courtney Emerson? She is such a dog," he said, shaking his head. "At least have some standards, dude."

Ralph nodded. "She does have a lot of acne, and it's definitely the blotchy kind."

Jemima sat down next to Beatrice, trying to tune into the conversation. "Who are we talking about?"

"Courtney Emerson. I just told them George was chatting her up earlier," Beatrice replied through a mouthful of food.

"Oh, yeah, he was," Jemima said, shuffling away to avoid the puddle of juice Beatrice had caused. "Didn't get anywhere, though."

"Wow, such a stud," Rex said, causing Ralph to snort and spray curry sauce all over himself.

Looking with Ralph with complete disgust, Jemima turned to address Rex. "George has something to say to you."

It took George a couple of seconds to get up to speed with what she meant.

"Oh, yeah, Rex, you're a knob," George said, trying to sound casual.

"What?" Rex said, sounding confused. "What prompted that?"

Nobody said anything, getting on with their food while Rex got more and more bewildered. The silence was finally broken when George's handler, a redhead called Rose, came over to their table with an empty tray.

"Okay kiddies, I've spoken to the karting place this afternoon and they say they're happy to go ahead with it, even with the poor weather, but make sure you take waterproofs and warm clothing. If you get hypothermia, I'm just leaving you to die," she said, keeping a straight face. "We'll meet at the car park in half an hour."

Everyone nodded and picked up their eating pace as she left, still needing to leave time to get ready. Ralph pointed his fork in the direction of Rose as she returned her tray.

"Now she is a solid nine," he said, cracking a grin as everyone around the table reacted with a groan.

"She's ten years older than you," Jemima said, tutting.

"At least," Beatrice added. "That is so disturbing."

"Oh, forgot to say," George cut in. "I've got a meeting about a mission tomorrow morning."

Nobody seemed all that interested, but Beatrice slapped him on the back.

"Congrats. Any idea what it'll be?"

"Nope," George told her. "Completely clueless."

"Probably something routine, then," Jemima said.

Rex looked annoyed. "Such a jammy bastard. Already a navy shirt and getting mission after mission."

"I've been stuck here for six months, and you were out on a mission literally today," George replied, "So don't call me jammy."

All five of them headed down to the car park after dinner and once they'd had a chance to grab coats and gloves. The only other addition to the group was Harry, who'd been in their group for basic training but had been away on a couple of long missions since, as well as putting on a couple of noticeable inches in height. He'd skipped eating dinner communally in order to do some last-minute homework and almost missed their ride for the evening, a Grand Espace people carrier with Rose in the driving seat. George bumped fists with him as he climbed in, taking the only available seat, which was between Jemima and Beatrice in the middle.

"Sitting in the pimp's seat," he announced, putting an arm around each of the girls, who made faces and pushed him away. All the boys laughed, although Ralph stopped quickly, since he'd drawn the short straw and had to sit up front with Rose.

All the Cherubs were in a good mood as they left campus, skimming through the security gates with minimal fuss. Rose had the heating on full blast, but with a full house it didn't take long for it to become warm anyway and after shouted complaints about being roasted alive, she turned it down again.

The roads were soaking wet and the car was heavy, so Rose drove cautiously, sitting five mph below the speed limit and slowing down for any major corners. Despite requests from Rex and George for her to 'floor it' and 'unleash the beast', she ignored them and followed the sat nav. The only excitement came when Beatrice demanded they pull over to let her get out and pee, and after getting soaked climbing an embankment to get a bit of privacy, she slipped over on her way back down and ended up with mud soaking into the back of her jeans. She moaned about them being designer, and after a round of comments about skid marks, Rose announced that the next person to say anything on the topic would spend their next lunchtime cleaning the mud off the upholstery.


End file.
